8 Amazing Detached Garage Conversion Ideas

The need to enlarge your living space may be due to an expanding family and the need for more space. Having some detached garage conversion ideas can come in handy and help you repurpose your detached garage into a living space, reserving its square footage and improving your family’s comfort.

Some detached garage conversion ideas that you may find stylish or functional are generally cheaper than extending the length and breadth of your home. However, you may need to seek permission to convert your garage into a living space. In some cases, permission is not necessary if you’ll not adding new structures.

In this article, you’ll have some easy-to-apply detached garage conversion ideas that’ll help you create more living space for your family and reduce its cost. You’ll also have answers to frequently asked questions about converting your garage into a living space.

What to Consider Before Detached Garage Conversion

A detached garage is a space for parking your vehicles, apart from the main house. It is usually a structure you build to accommodate automobiles and other items that need storage away from the main home. Homes with detached garages do so because the main house is limited space to accommodate an attached garage. However, that doesn’t make a detached garage inferior to an attached garage.

Before you subject your detached garage to conversion, there are things to consider, and they include:

Purpose of the Garage Conversion

A detached garage can be converted into any structure for a different purpose. For example, converting a detached garage into a living space is common. However, people also convert them to workshops, home offices, theaters, game rooms, entertainment rooms, or special occasions centers, such as large family gatherings.

The purpose for which you want to convert your detached garage influences the style, cost, and extent of design that goes into it. It also determines if you’ll need to seek permission to convert your garage or not.

Laws Guiding the Conversion

Depending on why you want to convert your detached garage and the new purpose it’s going to serve, you may need to seek permission from your local building and construction agency.

Usually, if you’re not adding any structural improvement to your garage, you’re spared from any permission, but that is dependent on where you reside. However, if your garage becomes a living space, you may need to seek permission regarding its suitability and the required features that qualify it to be a living space.

Cost of the Garage Conversion

The lesser the cost, the better for you. The cost of converting a detached garage to a living space differs from how much it’ll cost to convert the same space into an occasional space for family dinners or a home office.

You need to consider the cost of converting your swatches garage into whatever new purpose it’s supposed to serve and compare it to other options that you may have. Also, your design influences to what extent you can stretch the cost of converting your detached garage into a living space, home office, or entertainment center.

Good to Read: Contemporary Garage Design Ideas

Detached Garage Conversion Ideas

These detached garage conversion ideas are suitable for the different purposes you may want your garage to serve. For example, you’ll find ideas for converting your detached garage into living spaces, offices, and entertainment centers.

Garage to Living Space

Creating a living space means having the essential rooms that make a living comfortable. They include a living room, bedroom, dining area, bathroom, and toilet. While the living space you create from a detached garage may not have all these rooms, it should have the convenience and a space you can use as your sitting area, bedroom, and dining area.

This is one of the detached garage conversion ideas that allows you to combine aesthetics and functionality. Despite the pope’s jutting down from the roof and the exposed garage door system, you can have a living space with a dining area, living room and entertainment area, a sleeping area, and convenience.

Light fixtures slope along the roof. You can install a glass window where the garage door should be and still allow some natural light into the space. Combine colors of different hues among the pieces of furniture, and tie them together with area rugs.

From Garage to Bedroom

If your detached garage is small, it can conveniently become a living space with just a bedroom. This detached garage conversion idea allows you to have a bedroom and convenience.

You’ll need a ceiling if your garage doesn’t have one already. Natural light comes on from the large window, where the garage door used to be. Painting your walls white and including white in your fabrics and pieces of furniture will liven the space. However, you should combine it with other neutral colors. A can light is preferable for this garage-bedroom conversion.

Rustic Cottage from a Detached Garage

Optimizing the use of vertical space can help you get more out of your detached garage. For example, you can create a loft cottage that gives you all the room you need. The floor level serves as your living room, dining area, kitchen, and convenience. However, your bedroom is up the stairs.

You’ll achieve the rustic look with exposed beams from the garage roof, the wooden stairs that lead to the bedroom, and the exposed wooden beams above the kitchen and dining area. You can match these exposed woods with pieces of furniture such as cane chairs and wooden tables. Neutral colors on the walls will be excellent, and you can have as much natural light as you may need from the garage door, although a hanging light over the dining table will also supply light.

Spacious Living Space from Garage

The general assumption that a living space made from a garage conversion will be tight is erroneous. Depending on the size of your detachable garage and how well you can arrange your pieces of furniture, you can have a spacious living space in your detached garage.

Generally, the best types of detached garages for this idea are those with lofts. Underneath the loft, you can have your sitting area, and it can extend to the open area. The entertainment area, dining area, and kitchen take up the open space, with ample space for navigation. The bedroom is in the loft, and the bathroom is usually attached to the sitting area.

Detached Garage to Fully-Finished Home

It’s common to have a single door in and out of a home made from detached garages. However, you can have more doors and a fully-finished home too. So you’ll have the privacy you need and up to three entry and exit doors.

Your living room, kitchen, and dining area are in an open layout, as in a contemporary apartment. However, if you have a loft, it can serve as a bedroom. But you can also create a bedroom with a bathroom by installing a partition wall to separate the open layout from the bedroom. You can also install a door that leads from the bedroom outdoors and the loft outdoors.

Good to Read: Declutter Garage Ideas

Frequently Asked Questions About Detached Garage Conversion

Here are some common questions people ask about converting their detached garages into living spaces.

Do I Need Permission to Convert my Garage?

Building permission is required by law when you intend to add an extension that’ll probably change the layout of your home. However, with a garage conversion, you don’t need a planning permit since it doesn’t change the layout of your home. However, suppose you plan on adding some structures, such as an extension to your detached garage, that increases its coverage area. In that case, you may need planning permission from your local building authority.

If you’ll be sticking with your usual dimension, and only internal modifications will be done in your garage, you’ll not need planning permission. Still, you’ll need to get a scaled architectural drawing outlining every change you make to your garage to your local building authority.

How Long Does a Garage Conversion Take?

Garage conversions are fairly easy, relatively cheap, and fast to accomplish. Depending on the size of your garage and the new purpose you have for it, you can accomplish a converted garage in three to six weeks, provided no structural changes have to be made. The time spent converting a detached garage to a livable space increases with the size of the garage and how many structural changes have to be made.

How Can Someone Tell if Their Garage is Suitable for Conversion?

You need to ascertain that your garage will be safe if converted to a living space, which is why some conversions require permission from the local authority. First, however, you can investigate the suitability of your garage for conversion.

You need to start with the structural integrity of the garage. If it’s standing firm, it is good for conversion. You should also test for electricity safety, dampness, and ventilation. Also, it should be moisture- and fire-proof and have more than one exit. Finally, you should check its insulation for energy efficiency.

Final Thought

A detached garage houses your automobiles away from home. You can expand your living space by converting your detached garage into one, with all the required facilities that make up a living space.

This piece’s detached garage conversion ideas inspire you to awaken your creativity and expand your living space.